In sales, emotion is key, buyers follow what they feel

Legendary Zig Ziglar shared a story of how he could not take his mind off a particular red sweater in a shop near the hotel in which he had lodged during an official assignment. He walked inside the shop and admired the sweater but the salesperson was just the transactional kind. She didn’t make any effort to win Zig to buy the sweater; she only told him the selling price and continued what she was doing!

Zig, as a sales superstar didn’t like the salesperson’s attitude. He got angry and left for his hotel room. He narrated that he kept thinking about the beautiful sweater and how it would look on him. Somehow, he felt it won’t be smart enough not to buy the sweater because of the salesperson’s poor attitude to sales. He went back and bought the sweater. The reason for Zig’s action was simple; he got emotionally connected to the sweater!

Feelings and emotions are impressions that provoke physical response. They emanate from the inside and affect actions and reactions. Logic makes people think. Feelings and emotions make people act. Logically, people say things like: “Beautiful presentation but…let me think about it.” Or “I will get back to you after giving it a thought.” All these logical and reasoned statements are usually followed by the prospect’s exit. No wonder salesmen dislike these lines!

The reasons for these objections follow the universal principle underlying all selling, which is: ‘‘People buy emotionally and justify logically.’’ In the opening story, Zig Ziglar bought the sweater emotionally and justified his action logically. The logic was when he felt it wasn’t smart enough to ignore the sweater because of the salesperson’s unprofessional attitude. This is what happens in buyers’ world. A lot of thoughts go on in the buyer’s mind. The duty of the salesman is to ensure that these thoughts are positive toward him.

In the Features, Advantages and Benefits (FAB) concept of selling, what connects more is the ‘‘B,’’ the Benefit. Most times, Features and Advantages won’t close the sale until Benefits are introduced. Benefits connect emotionally. Prospects get emotionally attached to the products when they see the benefits.

Feeling and Emotion reside in the Benefit. This is so because when the buyer sees benefits, his ‘‘Emotional Temperature’’ rises and his decision to buy increases as well. The saying, features tell, benefits sell couldn’t be more correct.

I see emotion and feeling as the gap between thinking about doing something and taking action to do it. Emotion does not necessarily require logic to take place. Emotion follows its own sequence. Emotion acts without deep thinking!

I see selling as transfer of emotion and feeling. While the former (emotion) is temporary, the latter (feeling) is sustainable. To put it in another way, emotion is what you express immediately, while feeling is your true identity. Emotion is usually immediate; it does not necessarily follow logic.

Logically, emotion is an outcome of a reservoir of feeling. You react emotionally as a result of the way you feel. For example, a prospect that loves football will have the reservoir of this feeling inside him. His emotion would trigger when a salesman says something about football that attracts this feeling inside him. It therefore means that emotion is a function of what happens in your feeling reservoir.

John Voris, salesman and philosopher puts it this way: ‘‘feeling expresses your true identity, while emotion reveals how you have been taught to respond to events in your life. As the object in your world produces emotion within you, those emotions are collected in your subconscious and begin to accumulate. This is especially true when similar events are experienced repeatedly. Ultimately they form an emotional conclusion on how to live life, and more importantly, how to survive physically and mentally in a world of chaos. When this happens, a feeling is born. In this way, emotion serves as a sort of ‘‘feeling factory.’’

Sell like a champion! Do not forget to rouse the emotion of the buyer and justify the sale by giving the best offer. You can’t go ‘‘Sales Wrong’’ in this!

Pharmanews Health Cast

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